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Foxy Dream - 2009-1009.0153 OK, I'm trying to write one of these stories for a general audience. I'm an older adult, and it's frankly easier to use adult language, but I'll try to keep it clean. First off, I'm a Fox; that's the first thing you should know about me. Second, a Fox isn't a fox, the dumb animal. And I don't mean the group of Native Americans. No insult to them, they were here before us, and sorry for what my European ancestors did. Third, I'm dead. I mean the human I used to be is dead. I'm not trying to make Christians, Jews, and Muslims mad, it's just what happened to me. And I named the religions in alphabetic order, no insult intended. I've gotten a lot more sensitive to people's feelings as I've aged, and getting shot by hunters while I was trying to protect some wildlife is what got me this gig. Some of the hunters died too, shot by still other hunters, and they think being an animal themselves is a cruel irony. It's also ironic they depend on me to protect them from the humans who were their hunting buddies. Karma's a b- ain't it?

Even if you don't believe in it. OK, a Fox is my term for someone who has the size and body of an animal fox but the intelligence of a human. Yeah, I'm not the best example of either, or even a good one. It's really depressing to think I'm the best the last Fox had to work with.

I frankly never understood why blundering around the woods with a shotgun or repeating rifle could ever be called 'sport'. Maybe a hunter out there can explain it, calmly and unemotionally. I don't mean the ones who shoot game for food, butcher and wrap meat and hike it home; I mean the ones who kill and leave the dead thing. Sure, the Law of the Forest says some die so others may live, but people, that means EAT WHAT YOU SHOOT; if you don't eat, DON'T SHOOT!

I tried to protect some deer cause they were an endangered subspecies, I got shot and killed. Sorry, youngsters, bad things happen in real life.

The old Fox who found me and brought me back was pretty sad looking. He'd been in the woods almost fifty years, he was getting old, he was weak and he knew it. He couldn't get to the deer fast enough to save them all, he just made noise so they ran away.

He used up the last of his power saving me, his replacement. The first painful thing I had to do was watch him die, his little body like a deflated balloon as I shrank from human size to American Red Fox size, two and a half feet long and then about a foot of tail. He had to use my body to power the saving.

I guess I had to learn humility, or that's all the body I should have. I never used the human one as well as I should, so maybe I had to start small.

* At any rate, the real problem was I had nobody to teach me how to be a Wildlife Protector Fox. I had to learn on the job. What I did have was a mind that got bogged down in the details, a skill for complex gadgets nobody could make in a forest, and a buncha well- meaning animal friends to protect. None had hands, most had paws; hooves can't get a grip on things.

So making traps to catch hunters was out. Still thinking like a human, sigh. What I could do was move thistle and thorn bushes to slow em down, make it less 'fun' to slog through. The older forest animals had seen this from the last Protector, and knew how to help.

Deer hooves can't hold anything, but they can scrape ground. They made little grooves in the dirt. How's that help? Cover it with leaves, trail sign any cub who can walk would recognize, but humans rearing up on your hindpaws all the time're too far away to see. I don't think you even look, you expect *us* to watch out for *you*!

Ha! You humans stumble around the forest cause it's rough, not smooth like a floor. Then you're too dumb to just stand still and get your balance, reach out to the life-force all around you and *feel* your way. *Lift your heels UP, people!*

Nope, you keep walking, trip over the hidden grooves, and you're still too dumb to let go of the gun! You tighten your grip instead, and are stupidly surprised when it fires!

None of this really hurts you. You just get mad, throw a temper tantrum, and blame the ground, or the woods. For not doing what you want?! I'll say it again,

*We're not here to serve YOUR needs!* Get the h- over your- selves! Get in balance with nature, or you'll all die by her wrath! Even a Wildlife Protector Fox can't just wave a paw and push the evil humans away, best I could do was make em go somewhere else.

But I had the whole woods to protect, not just a few acres. Where were all the other Protectors? It was a shock to know, I was it. Oh, Boy, were we in trouble! Did Superman ever feel overwhelmed?

But like a comic-book superhero, I did have some power with the responsibility. I found out about an hour later. The hunters, 'sportsmen' they called themselves, were still bumbling around, making a racket even when they tried to be quiet. Hey, guys! *We can hear you talking to each other!*

OK, I was the one knew the odd sound meant something. I could hear better than humans and smell them a half-mile away, and forest- dwellers hear and scent better than I can. But they're not bright enough to know it means danger; I am. So I sneak up to em and listen.

Here's the fun part. I'm still dead, y'see. So I don't show up on infrared nightscopes! Especially since lots of humans don't know how they work, don't know how to set them up, don't know how to use them! I've actually heard humans say the dang thing ain't workin, there's no blinking dots!

They think it works like a videogame, or a movie, with grid lines and blinking red dots! "Here's the target, X marks the spot!" And some idiots think there's gonna be a beeping sound, like a trea- sure finder, wave it around and "... beep... beep... beepBeepBEEP! there's the animal to shoot!"

I really wish the fate of the whole human race depended on these idiots! Just fool the few dummies, and the threat to us goes away!

* But of course it isn't up to idiots, and you humans don't go away. In fact you keep coming, closer and closer and think you have a right to cut down OUR homes for YOURS!

I guess that's why the dead hunters are so mad they're forest animals now; they think they were better than us and it's not fair. Well boo-hoo, humans; guess what, life's not fair! But it's Protectors like me who balance the scale.

It really digs their furry craw now to ask me for help! I say, let the stupid fools get run down by dogs! Let em get scared out of their wits, serves em right for doing this to us! Sometimes it's really tough to feel anything but contempt for 'sportsmen'.

That's how I feel, not what I do. See, my power as Protector flows from the animals I protect. If I mess up and someone dies, I feel it! Not just sympathy, I mean quite literally I feel their pain!

And I feel weak and dizzy for a short time. So I got an incen- tive to do a good job; I lose when they lose, but I gain when they do. Yeah sure, the forest predators have a right to live, but so does their prey; so I insist they do their work quickly and cleanly. No suffering!

And I can enforce the Forest Law I suddenly understood when the previous Protector passed the mantle, so to speak. I shrank, he deflated; but something passed from him to me. I've tossed other foxes and even some wolves away from prey because they were playing; but sometimes it's an old animal who got pushed aside by neighbors and can't hunt for him- or her-self.

Then it's my sad duty to provide -- one animal dies so another can live. I do it quickly so there's no suffering; one's loss is another's gain. It may seem cruel, but the choice is this: old animal dies now, young one dies later; or young one dies now, old one lives awhile.

And if a member of a predator or a prey species happens to live and get old, I have to take his or her pain away. They die, and their suffering ends; and I gain their knowledge. When a youngster needs to learn, I help predators hunt and prey escape. I keep the balance of life.

Maybe this is why Lester looked so old in spirit as well as body. Fifty years of life-and-death decisions would wear anyone down. I had to learn to stay out of fights for mating rights; even the girl got mad at me for interfering! Now I just watch and let the power flow over me, around and through.

It feels really good to let the power flow. If humans kill animals, I get angry first. As Protector I can put the animals' pain onto the killers. After, they recover and run away. Most never come back, at least not to *my* woods!

But more and more often they do come back, with more humans! Why the bloody heck do you humans feel it's OK to invade land the good earth provides?! It's not yours to steal, it's already some prey's feeding ground and some predator's hunting ground.

Animals kill only to survive. They feed, and leave the rest for scavengers, lower life forms, and plants. Then plants feed the prey, who feed the predators, and so on. It's nature's cycle.

Humans just take and take and never give back. Well, not on *my* watch! Humans hate, and kill, and I have to get that hate in me because I'm Protector.

So I'm gonna show you humans why you fear the unknown! You *will* remember why you fear the night! Every horror y'all have locked up in those brains of yours is mine to know and mine to bring forth! Y'all *will* fear these woods and fear the wrath of the Protector Fox!

* Good. I can feel the hate rising within you. Watch your forest friends fight and die. You can't help them with kindness. Let the hate flow, feel the power of the Dark Side ...

In case you didn't know, George Lucas wasn't the first human to figure this stuff out. He wasn't even the first to write it down, ask Herman Melville. Or did you think Captain Ahab was a friendly old fisherman until he lost a leg chasing Moby Dick?

Talk about going over to the Dark Side of the Force! Ahab's insane hatred led to his and his crew (well, not Ishmael)'s death. He couldn't just let it go, a misfortune caused by his own stupidity. No one made him stand on the rope to the harpoon, he just wasn't paying attention and got the injury he deserved!

A Wildlife Protector Fox walks a thin line between Good and Evil. Why not just kill the humans who invade my woods? Then they'd never hurt my friends! Kill enough of them, the rest will stay away too.

And it would feel really good! Kill the killers, never mind it would bring me down to your level. And you call us inhuman beasts? Clean up your own thoughts and souls first, humans!

I have to kill some animals so others may live. Kill the hunter before he kills us, it's a fair trade, right? I heard this argument even back when I was human, kill them before they kill us. Still used to trick people into wars and genocide.

The forest needs both prey and predators to keep the balance. Too many predators leads to too few prey and starving predators. Too few predators leads to too many prey, too much eating, and prey starve. So sure, we need some humans as predators; but there're way too many of ya, and we prey suffer. And now you're having trouble feeding all those humans!

We're out of balance, and it can't go on forever. OK, I can only protect the woods, not the whole planet. Remember I said I can sneak up and listen to ya talk; some humans remember the balance and only kill for food. Them, I respect, and so do the animals. We provide for their needs. They kill, take the meat, leave the rest for scavengers.

So I can't just kill every human, that'd break the balance. *But I can kill the naughty ones, and I do!* They kill for 'fun' and that makes em naughty, so I run up and I do 'that voodoo that Protec- tors do' that takes the animals' pain and puts it on the human.

Then I keep the balance by letting predators and scavengers know someone's dead. The cycle of nature continues. If it's a new human I've punished, he's off-limits; he recovers and leaves. Ever been chased by a ticked-off Wildlife Protector Fox?

It ain't pretty! And if I've seen the evil hunter before and know he's not just providing for himself or his family, then he's really naughty and I go Dark. That ain't pretty either; in fact it's terrifying. And that's the whole point.

Maybe George Lucas is a hunter and saw Lester or another Protector go Dark; or maybe he heard a story sitting round a campfire. But he pretty much nailed the unholy calm, the thunder and lightning directed at the human.

What he couldn't show in a PG13 movie was what that does to flesh; leave a potroast in the oven a few extra hours and you'll see and scent what I mean. And that's about all that's left of some hunter when I get through with him!

When his friends see me go Dark they get all goofy and run around like they're blind; so I send a few lightbolts in the general direction of 'get the h- outta here!' for em to follow. Leaves a weird circle pattern in the grass where he useta be and some odd burn marks.

Some humans run when they see me coming, but I chase em out of the woods and into the cornfields. Then I catch up and use the light- bolts anyway. Crop circles? naw, just me Protecting the forest!